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- 'directive that ... be prohibited' is more awkward than 'directive prohibiting ...', and may in fact be considered incorrect. (from what i've seen, the use of 'directive' is similar to that of 'law', and you can't say things like 'prohibition was a law that the sale of alcohol be prohibited'.) - 'prohibited from sale': i'm pretty sure that's wrong. the correct use of the idiom in this case would be 'chemical companies were prohibited from selling chemicals...' you could also say that the sale of such chemicals is prohibited.

there's no ambiguity. this issue is settled nicely and neatly by the presence/absence of a comma. if the comma is not there, the participial modifier must modify whatever noun directly precedes it. if the comma is there, then the participial modifier is taken to modify the preceding clause as a whole (or particularly the verb of that clause). to wit: tom received the court order [NO COMMA] restricting his movements outside the city --> the court order itself restricts tom's movements. we can infer that tom's movements are already restricted by the court order, regardless of whether he has received it. tom received the court order, restricting his movements outside the city --> tom's movements were not restricted until he received the order.

by the way, the second of these sentences isn't that great: tom is the subject of that sentence, so the modifier implies that tom restricted his own movements by receiving the order. to convey the meaning more precisely, you'd say something like tom received the court order, thus activating or bringing into effect restrictions on...'

Re: One of Ronald Reagans first acts as President was to rescind [#permalink]
17 Jan 2014, 14:31

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Re: One of Ronald Reagans first acts as President was to rescind [#permalink]
02 May 2015, 04:25

cluelesss wrote:

Between A & C i went with A. progressive form doesnot sound good here.

Two points to consider:1) If 'that' and 'which' are placed after a comma, they modify the noun just before comma and if they appear without comma, they seem to modify the complete clause.In A, 'that' is modifying the clause 'first act as president was to rescind the directive'. This implies that the President's first step will be that any chemical banned on medical grounds in the US be prohibited.....A would have been correct if a comma would have been placed before that. In that case 'directive' would have been modifies in place of the complete claues.

2) -ing form after a subject placed without comma modified the noun just before it.

Comments are highly appreciated

gmatclubot

Re: One of Ronald Reagans first acts as President was to rescind
[#permalink]
02 May 2015, 04:25